Reader Ben was sad. His Xbox was doing the ol’ Red Ring of Death. He thought that was quits for his trusted gaming companion but then he started doing some research on Consumerist. Perusing our archives, he realized from some of our old posts that included in the price of the repair to the machine he had done not too long ago was a one-year warranty extension. Huzzah! Here’s what he did next: [More]

Chris was fixing his neighbor’s Toshiba laptop when he discovered that the hard drive was defective. Just like how he does at his job where he is a professional computer technician, he wrote “FAULTY X” on it to indicate it shouldn’t be used again. When he sent the computer, which was still under its 1-year warranty period, in to Toshiba, he was dismayed by the reply he got back. They refused to replace the hard drive because “the label was written/torn” and “Toshiba does not cover the cost for this type of damage.” Now they $417.58 for the repair. [More]

Good news! Reader Jennifer’s wedding set has returned from its long voyage to China for repair. The bad news: she writes that the repair work done in China was so terrible that her local store sent it back out to a US repair facility to be fixed. When Jennifer finally went to pick the rings up, she found their repair job unsatisfactory–the word “botched” comes up–and now they’ve been sent back. Again. [More]

Justin and his wife saved up and bought a sweet, petite, shiny new Whirlpool refrigerator from Lowe’s. They were thrilled with their new purchase for about three weeks, until it began to make an unholy buzzing noise. No one can make the buzzing stop. Not Whirlpool, not Lowe’s, not an endless procession of repairmen, and not either company’s executive customer service. What now? [More]

Rob really, really liked his ASUS laptop. He kept it clean, treated it kindly, and loved it very much. Yet the display mysteriously broke…sort of… and it began crying rainbow LCD tears when it was only six months old. He sent it in for repair, and the company first told him that the repair would take three business days…then fourteen. Rob would really, really like his computer back. [More]

Charter tells it like it is: the problem with Eric’s incorrectly installed Internet service is that he hasn’t been trying hard enough to fix it. Here’s a copy of an email that Eric tried to send to Charter’s CEO last week, but it bounced back. Maybe someone at Charter can read it here? [More]

The Geek Squad service timeline for Stephen’s $1300 Asus laptop went something like this: ship it off for repairs, get it back in an even more broken state and missing all data, be forced to buy a $35 disk from Asus to prove to Best Buy that the problem is their responsibility, then finally find that something went missing during the first repair. Stephen eventually just asked for his money back on his ruined laptop, but the best he could get was store credit. [More]

A woman in Colorado had her eyes burned out by images of “nude women and male genitals” on her cellphone’s new(ish) memory card, reports KRDO.com. She says the Sprint employees who worked on her phone must have known it was there, since they’re the ones who swapped in the new card. She’s pretty upset: “If [young family members] had seen those pictures, it could have ruined them for life.” [More]

Ken is facing a $13,000 repair bill on his 2007 Chevy 2500 diesel truck, because the full factory warranty the dealership assured him it had was voided by GM. The reason: GM says at some point in the past, someone put a chip in the truck that doesn’t match the info GM has, so they don’t have to service it. The problem for Ken is that the dealership didn’t check for this chip before it sold the truck to Ken, and Ken didn’t know about this loophole when he bought it. In fact, he says he bought it about a year and a half before GM implemented this rule. [More]

Dave and his wife came into some money and decided it was time to get a professional out to solve their slow draining toilet problems once and for all. Mr. Rooter showed up, and in less than a week the company managed to also solve Dave’s “I just came into some money” problem, by taking all of it. The problem is, Dave isn’t sure that any of the expensive extra work was necessary now that he can see the pipes. [More]

As we noted last week, Luxottica is the company behind pretty much all eyewear on the market these days, and you know what that means when it comes to customer service: if you don’t have to compete to keep your customers happy, why bother? That’s why Patricia is facing a ridiculously high repair fee, but can’t get through on the provided phone number to tell Luxottica to cancel the repair. In fact, every time she calls she’s put on hold and then disconnected. [More]

If you were one of the early adopters for the Apple Time Capsule back in 2008 and yours won’t power up, you might be able to get it repaired or replaced for free, or get a refund for repairs you already paid for, reports TUAW. To see if you’ve got a recalled model, look for a serial number between XX807XXXXXX and XX814XXXXXX. [More]

Maybe I can’t play Plants vs. Zombies while I drive (or maybe I can!*), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of useful apps for the average driver. In its August issue, Consumer Reports reviews a bunch of apps for motorists, both free and paid, that promise to help you remember maintenance dates, get the correct info after an accident, or find your car in a big parking lot. [More]

Replacing an iPhone is expensive, which is why this guy decided to buy a heavily used and damaged one and clean it up himself. You might find the screen replacement side too daunting, but the procedure for turning a dull, scratched case into a glossy smooth one is something pretty much anyone can do. [More]

The website AutoMD.com sent mystery shoppers to 600 auto repair shops in 50 different market areas to ask how much it would cost to replace the front brakes on a Ford Focus. They found that on average, repair shops in Memphis were among the most affordable shops tested, and they tended to consistently quote their prices to customers. The worst was the Chicago area, where shops quoted anywhere from $425 to $150, and where every shop tested changed its quote depending on what information the mystery shopper presented. [More]

Funny or Die wants to help Toyota out of this awkward situation it’s found itself in, so the site has posted a helpful video of a cheerfully steely spokeswoman who likes to point with both hands. It’s like she’s shooting good news in your face! Pow pow! And really, it’s true that you can have an awesome garage party without ever needing to take your Toyota on the road, so maybe you should stop being so pessimistic. Video below. [More]

Rob’s digital photo frame stopped working a few days ago, so he contacted Kodak to see whether they could help him. He writes that he knew it was at least one month out of warranty because the warranty is for one year, and he’d been given it as a gift a year ago on Christmas. Still, he was hoping Kodak would cut him a deal or do some sort of above-and-beyond thing.

Instead, he found out that as far as Kodak was concerned, it had been out of warranty for over two years